Card edge connectors can receive circuit boards having contacts which are aligned with cooperating contacts in the connectors. The applicant is aware of the following U.S. patents in which a keying means is disclosed to assure alignment of the members and to permit connection of preselected members.
______________________________________ U.S. Pat. No. Inventor(s) ______________________________________ 3,634,816 Zell 3,818,280 Smith et al. 4,715,820 Andrews, Jr. et al. 4,869,672 Andrews, Jr. 4,993,972 Lin 5,173,063 Barkus et al. ______________________________________
The prior art recognizes the need to key the connectors to the circuit boards to align the contacts and to facilitate accurate assembly of electrical interconnection systems. In all of the known connectors, the keying interrupts the pattern of the contacts on the connector and reduces the total number of contacts which would be available if the keying means were not a part of the connector. Also, the connectors are specific for the circuit board and do not permit the connector to be used with circuit boards having differing dimensions. U.S. Pat. No. 4,993,972 issued to Lin, addresses the need to provide a connector adapted to receive a variety of different width plug-in panels to increase the versatility and usefulness of the connector, and discloses special spacer blocks to effect this versatility.
However, there exists a need for a connector/circuit board system which permits the simple alignment of the connector and the circuit board without reducing the number of contacts and which is sufficiently versatile to allow a simple connector to be used with a variety of circuit boards.